Operation Decisive Storm
Operation Decisive Storm (25 March-21 April 2015) was a military intervention launched by Saudi Arabia and carried out by a coalition of several Middle Eastern countries, with support from Pakistan and the United States, with the goal of restoring President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi to power after the extremist Shi'ite Houthis overthrew him in February 2015. Saudi Arabia led the coalition with 150,000 troops and 100 warplanes, and the other states also provided aerial forces. They bombed Yemen to stop the Houthi offensives against the army of Hadi, as Hadi fled the country after a Houthi siege of his temporary capital of Aden and the capture of the Aden Airport by former president Ali Abdullah Saleh's loyalist forces. On 21 April, after weeks of bombing, Saudi Arabia ended its bombing campaign, saying that it had accomplished all of its goals, and started Operation Restoring Hope. Background The Yemeni Revolution of 2011 made the country of Yemen, unstable since the start of an insurgency by radical Shi'ite Houthis in 2004, even more unstable. The Houthi militias, backed by the loyalists of the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh (overthrown in the revolution), launched offensives against the government of President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi after the coup, and in 2014, the Houthis forced Prime Minister Mohammed Basindawa to resign. For months after September, there was no prime minister, and in February 2015, Hadi was forced to resign after Houthis took over the capital of Sanaa and took the presidential palace. The Revolutionary Committee of Yemen, led by Houthi commander Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, became the new government, although unrecognized by any other country. The takeover of the government by the Houthis led to the destabilization of the country, and Hadi was besieged in his base of Aden in southern Yemen. With Hadi forced to flee to Riyadh after leaving Yemen by boat, Hadi asked for military intervention. The Gulf Cooperation Council declared its involvement in the crisis, with Saudi Arabia leading a coalition of Middle Eastern nations against the Houthi-ruled government. War Air Campaign ]]Saudi Arabia pledged 150,000 troops and 150 planes to the intervention, while the other nations also pledged warplanes. Egypt and Jordan, also in the coalition, declared that they would be ready to supply ground troops. On Thursday, 26 March 2015, the Royal Saudi Air Force bombed the Sanaa International Airport and the al-Dulaimi Military Airport, killing 17 people. On 27 March, Saudi Arabia resumed the bombing of Yemen, with Egypt assisting them, bombing Saada Governorate and killing 10 Houthis. 39 civilian casualties were reported. Iran condemned the attacks, saying that the attack would further destabilize the region. The United States and United Kingdom both backed the intervention, with the USA sharing their intelligence with the coalition as support. Thousands protested in Sanaa against the intervention, as did Saleh, but the intervention continued. Saudi Arabia declared a no-fly zone over Yemen, threatening to shoot down any plane that violated the zone. Saudi Arabia also established air superiority early in the campaign, and the Egyptian Navy also steamed towards the Gulf of Aden to assist the Egyptian operations. On 28 March, Saudi planes evacuated a United Nations mission to the Yemeni capital of Sana'a, and a day later, a Pakistani Boeing 747 was allowed into the country to ferry out Pakistani nationals that were at threat from the crisis. On 30 March, the People's Republic of China followed the example and evacuated its citizens amongst declining security, and on the same day, the Royal Saudi Air Force bombed a Harad District refugee camp, killing 21 people, including Houthi fighters in addition to civilians. By 2 April, 361 Houthi fighters, 361 civilians, and 1 Saudi border guard were killed, while 1,345+ civilians were killed in the aerial campaign. On 2 April 2015, the Saudis bombed the Houthis as they took over the Presidential Palace in Aden, but they withdrew after hearing about the airstrikes. The Pakistanis refused to send support after a parliamentary decision on 10 April, and after weeks of bombing Houthi targets, Saudi Arabia declared on 21 April that the bombing campaign accomplished all of its goals and ended the operation. A re-evaluated casualty report stated that 10 Saudi soldiers were killed and 14 were wounded, while 405 civilians were said to have been killed. Houthi losses were unknown as of that date. These figures seemed to oppose previous casualty reports, which claimed that 361 Houthi fighters and 1,345+ civilians had been killed in the bombings. Naval Campaign Somalia offered the use of its airspace and territorial waters to the coalition, and 4 Egyptian Navy warships steamed towards the Gulf of Aden to aid in the blockade of the Yemeni coast. A squadron of Saudi and Egyptian warships took up position in the Bab al-Mandab Strait, with the Royal Saudi Navy evacuating United Nations staff and diplomats from Aden on 28 March. The US Navy was also involved in the blockade, sending planes to assist Saudi pilots that were downed over the Gulf of Aden. On 20 April 2015, after reports surfaced that an Iranian Navy convoy of about 8 shisps was headed to Yemen to potentially resupply the Houthis, the United States sent USS Theodore Roosevelt and USS Normandy to monitor the Iranians. By 21 April, there were 9 US ships in the Gulf of Aden, and the political situation became tense. Category:Wars Category:Yemeni Civil War